The Wonderful Land Of Oz
The Wonderful Land Of Oz is low-budget, but faithful musical adaptation of Baum's second book, "The Marvelous Land Of Oz." About it Literally looking like garage filmmaking, The Wonderful Land Of Oz opens with a warbled song and introduces us to Dorothy, who continues her adventures in the land of Oz with her companions, the pumpkin man, purple cow, tin woodman, scarecrow, Mombi the witch, and Glinda the good fairy. Dorothy also meets Ozma, the queen of emerald city; Jack Pumpkinhead; Tip, a little boy; general Jinjur, the girl chief of the army of Oz; a talking sawhorse; the scholarly wogglebug; and the gump, a huge bird made of sofas. Tip is loaded with dull angst over his guardian, an evil wicked witch named Mombi, because she makes the boy go to bed on time, and when he attempts to rebel against such parental sadism, she vows to turn him into a statue. Tip flees with the aid of his newly-animated companion, Pumpkinhead, who is brought to sort-of life via magic powder, as the two run afoul and get caught up in a palace coup with the Army of Revolt, an obnoxious high school band headed by teenaged brat general Jinjur, who takes Tip prisoner as she marches her troops to take over the emerald city. Tip and Pumpkinhead manage to make it to the emerald city, but rather than encountering a wizard behind the curtain, Tip gets magically transformed into a girl by Glinda, and transitions from dull tyke to pouting queen. Trivia This film came 30 years after MGM's The Wizard Of Oz The movie was written, produced, and directed by Barry Mahon, who made low-budget "nudie" films for the grindhouse circuit during the 1960s, and he told The New York Times that he was planning to get Judy Garland to narrate the film, but the film has almost no narration. Popular rumor is that Jinjur's Army of Revolt is composed of actors who had previously appeared in Mahon's nudie films. This is, however, not the case. The nudie films were made in New York City, while the children's films were made in Florida. Mahon did not bring any of his former performers to appear in the film. The film played in Saturday "kiddie matinee" venues, but was not released on VHS until after it had been issued on DVD, making it something of a lost and often misreported legend. Poor acting and production values let this one down, since it takes everything audiences loved about the 1939 movie and coats it in a slippery, weird, and filmy substance with badly costumed characters. The scarecrow and tin man are obligatory characters that look like Yugoslavian knockoffs of Russian knockoffs of the original characters, there is a papier-mâché purple cow with blinking eyes, the wogglebug is a man with antenna, bug eyes, and a walrus mustache, Glinda the good witch is wearing a sickening and bloated pink dress and a K-Mart tiara, and Jack Pumpkinhead has replaced the cowardly lion, but someone forgot to give him a microphone under that oversized head because we can barely hear him because he seems to be struggling with his lines. Channy Mahon, the director's son, was an incredibly bad child actor whose ill-timed lethargic performance was the central element in a largely inexperienced ensemble. Category:Movies Category:The Wizard Of Oz